Mismeasuring Racial Colorblindness

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Earlier this year, a controversy unfolded at TED, which hosted speaker Coleman Hughes to give a talk promoting the idea of racial colorblindness. Hughes claims that TED undermined his talk by failing to promote it at the behest of a small number of people who found it objectionable, including psychologist Adam Grant. Hughes defines racial colorblindness as “the belief that we should strive to treat people without regard to race in our personal lives and in our public policy.” But Grant points to published literature that ostensibly rebuts this viewpoint, showing that when people have a race-conscious mindset (one that strongly emphasizes ethnic or cultural differences), this results in much better social outcomes (i.e., less bias and discrimination) compared to a colorblind mindset. Hughes pushed back by arguing that he did not rely on social science (which he deems flawed due to the replication crisis) while also noting that the evidence shows colorblindness is also associated with positive social outcomes in those studies.

There are aspects of both Grant’s and Hughes’ arguments that I agree and disagree with. My sense of this issue is that some people (especially those in progressive activist and academic spaces) misconstrue what it means to advocate for racial colorblindness. This has led some researchers to measure colorblindness in their studies in a way that bears little resemblance to the philosophy put forward by folks like Hughes.

Is Racial Colorblindness in Denial?

For example, Hughes states that the term “colorblindness” is a misnomer: “After all, we all see race. We can’t help it….Race can influence how we’re treated, and how we treat other people. So in that sense, no one is truly colorblind.” Given this straightforward admission about the reality of race and racism in an argument for colorblindness, it’s striking to see researchers frame colorblindness as a “denial of racism” and “color evasion,” which appear to be antithetical to what Hughes is actually arguing for.

This becomes even more evident when looking at some of the questionnaire items that researchers have used to apparently measure a colorblind mindset and its connection to bias and discrimination. “I never really notice the racial or ethnic background of other people,” when said by a white person, can be reasonably interpreted as smug or perhaps even contemptuous toward people of color. Other questionnaire items include “Talking about racial issues causes unnecessary tension” and “Seeing people in terms of race is an injustice,” which smack of callousness toward the lived experience of non-white or immigrant groups.

In the words of some scholars, “Downplaying group distinctions in a society still wrought with racism can also communicate that one does not notice or care about persistent racism and the marginalization of nondominant cultures.” Researchers frame colorblindness as a defensive rejection of racism held by white people, while arguing that it would be impossible to eradicate racism unless we adopt a race-conscious mindset. By extension, researchers brand colorblindness as a nefarious method by which white people perpetuate racial hierarchy. Other researchers go as far as to construe this type of colorblindness as a microaggression in and of itself. It is no surprise then to learn that, according to the critics of colorblindness (including Grant), research shows that having a race consciousness is better than a colorblind mindset in terms of achieving positive social goals, including less bias and discrimination.

But do those questionnaire items accurately capture the type of colorblind mindset that people like Hughes are advocating for? Or do they instead reflect a negative caricature of colorblindness? I am skeptical about the methods used in these studies. Perhaps the reason why some researchers find colorblindness to be inferior (compared to race consciousness) is because they are studying the worst possible manifestation of a colorblind worldview. It would be almost pathological to deny that people belong to different racial and ethnic groups, and even a majority of conservatives agree that racism still exists in America, along with a larger majority of progressives. In this sense, the opponents of colorblindness are correct when they say that those ideas can be bad—it would be a big problem if a substantial number of people in a majority group were outwardly denying that racism exists or that it must be dealt with. But this critique is based on the least charitable reading of a colorblind approach. A more apt interpretation would be to see colorblindness as aspirational, which Hughes says explicitly is part of his approach. It’s an ideal that he thinks people should strive to live up to, even if it doesn’t reflect the world we currently live in.

Colorblindness in Practice

A true colorblind mindset does not appear to be centered around a denial of racism or racial categories. It seems to be more consistent with the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement—that we should aim to overcome prejudicial tendencies and treat people equally regardless of race. Advocates like Hughes call for race-neutral policies such as traffic cameras, which cannot possibly discriminate based on race (whereas police officers often do), as well as blind auditions for music performances. The general idea seems to be that we should disrupt potentially racist tendencies by modifying social conditions such that racism would be much less likely to occur. Preferences for this type of race-neutral policy approach are conspicuously absent from the questionnaires that researchers use to study colorblindness.

What about affirmative action in admission to colleges and universities? Hughes argues elsewhere that affirmative action is ineffective since only a tiny fraction (1 percent) of Black and Hispanic students will benefit from such policies. He instead argues for more effective education reforms such as those developed by Harvard economist Roland Fryer, which would have a much greater impact in successfully promoting academic achievement for minority students. But instead of capturing this nuanced and evidence-based perspective, scholars pathologize opposition to affirmative action by framing it as a defensive reaction to perceived reverse-racism (e.g., “Social policies, such as affirmative action, discriminate unfairly against white people.”).

Colorblindness and Race Consciousness Are Compatible

Opponents of colorblindness, like Grant, argue that it’s naive to expect we will ever overcome racism or that we will ever achieve a truly colorblind society. Even the word colorblind evokes a kind of impotence or incompetence, whereas the term conscious evokes a mindset of being awake and clear-headed. With a race-conscious approach, people are attuned and sensitive to various aspects of group identities. People with a race-conscious mindset might attempt to focus attention on customs and traditions of different racial/ethnic groups to understand better how people with various identities live their lives and ultimately gain a multicultural perspective.

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Navigating Cognitive Minefields

This seems benign, much like the charitable version of colorblindness advocated by Hughes. Interestingly, the same line of research that supposedly finds that race consciousness is superior to colorblindness also finds that these two variables are positively correlated with each other. If these are such radically different ideologies with regard to views on race, then why is it the case that those who more strongly endorse a race-conscious perspective are also more likely to endorse a colorblind perspective? Could it be there’s more overlap than people realize? I think this is ironic considering that the scientists who oppose colorblindness often claim it is, in effect, sustaining racism. If that were true, we’d need to reckon with the fact that a race-conscious mindset appears to overlap with colorblindness to a significant extent. Maybe this correlation reveals the fact that, regardless of which mindset individuals adopt, the vast majority of all of us share the same goals. We want to live in a world that is free of prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry. We agree that people should be treated equally regardless of external physical features, such as skin color.

In summary, I think Hughes’ brand of a colorblind approach is not adequately measured by the questionnaire items that some psychologists use to study colorblindness. Instead, colorblindness is mischaracterized as something insensitive and offensive. It’s been pathologized and fused with other sets of beliefs that bear less resemblance to the kind of rhetoric by figures like Hughes and others. I suggest that scholars use more refined methods to study this variable by more accurately incorporating the viewpoints from advocates for a colorblind society.